Happy New Year! We hope you had a fun and relaxing break with family and friends.

As always, the holidays flew by, and we’re already into the first weeks of 2015 wondering where the time has gone. Which is why, when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, we knew we had to keep it simple. Here’s what we’ve got:

Cut back on sugar

Everyone has a bête noire in their diet, and mine is sugar. In the warmer months, it's easy to reach for yogurt with fresh fruit when I get the munchies. In the winter, I'm way too likely grab cookies or pumpkin bread or hot chocolate. So I'm going back to a rule that's worked for me better than any sort of official diet: No more than 25 grams of added sugar a day. That basically means that I don't drink sweetened beverages and that if I want a dessert, I choose carefully and have only a small serving, or better, make it myself and use less sugar than the recipe calls for. Totally doable. -- KW

I will not be rushed

The last three months of 2014 were ridiculously busy for me. In that time, I realized that most of the stress in my life comes from people who are trying to make me do things faster. At work, that's unreasonable deadlines. At home, it's toddlers who are so eager for me to get out of the shower that they ram the bathroom door with their riding toys.

Let me explain something. I am not a procrastinator. I am a parent who works full-time. The only way I can get everything done is to do it. The kitchen elves, the housekeeping elves, the editing elves -- they all live in someone else's house. If I am not working full-tilt, not totally focused on the task at hand, it is because my mind desperately needs a rest before it can become functional again. Telling me to hurry up is a complete and utter waste of time. All it does is irritate me. So I am not going to let people do it. I am going to tell them to take a number and get in line. They can fold my laundry while they wait. -- KW

Walk

I have tried running. I have tried the gym. I do not like it. What I like is to walk, for hours on end.

Unfortunately, it’s increasingly rare that I get the chance to walk. Before I had kids, a day spent hiking was not unusual. Now it's a once-a-year treat -- maybe. But I've got to clear my head somehow. So every day that I work from home, I am going to find a full hour to walk outside during daylight hours (the 9:30 pm walk, after the kids are asleep, is just not as good).

As of January 16, I have blown this resolution repeatedly. I am undeterred. -- KW

Unplug

My friend filmmaker Tiffany Shlain and her family have “Technology Shabbats,” turning off their devices and unplugging from Friday evening through Saturday night. “Unplugging for a day makes time slow down and makes me feel more present with my family,” Shlain says, in a short film she put together about the idea. This is something I can get behind. After averaging 10 hours a day on my computer last year, with time in between spent checking my smartphone, the idea of a tech-free day at least once a week has a lot of appeal. Goodness knows I’ve earned the right to unplug. -- CG

Get some fresh air

I’m amazed at how often I spent the entire day inside last year, with the only time spent outside either walking into the office in the morning or heading home at night. No more. I am now making an effort to be outside for least 10 minutes of every workday, even if it’s just standing in the courtyard in front of my office building. I know that 10 minutes doesn’t sound like much, but it’s enough time to listen to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major and Bohemian Rhapsody, or Danzón No. 2, as conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Good enough. -- CG

Don't stop me now

I have adopted a theme song for 2015. It’s Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” I’m using it is a reminder that every day can be an adventure, filled with opportunities to have fun and try new things. I don’t know if every day will turn out that way, but I’m trying to be optimistic here, and if a 3.5 minute song can help me through even a third of the days ahead this year, how bad can that be? -- CG

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That's what I’m telling myself, as I’m jammed into the middle seat on a four-hour flight. I'm trying to remember that really, this is a lot easier than being up with a colicky baby for four hours. And that business trips, actually, are a weird sort of luxury. Generally, I’ll sleep through the night, and if I pack enough granola bars and apples, get to eat when I’m hungry.

If you’re with an infant 24-7, my guess is that sounds pretty relaxing.

I’ll remind myself again in a few hours, when I’ll be in what is probably a very nice hotel room. I will tell myself to enjoy it, rather than wondering what the heck I’m doing here by myself, without my husband.

Yes, it's a truism: While I can’t control my surroundings, I can control my response to them. I can be thankful or I can be snotty. It’s my choice. I've been told this a hundred times, and it's still hard to fully accept. It sounds easy, but it’s really hard.

What do you say to someone who asks you a rude or inappropriate question or says something offensive?

That was what several friends asked after I shared my advice on Getting Unstuck from Sticky Situations. What do you say, they wondered, to questions like, “Have you lost weight?” “How much money do you make?” “Is that your real nose?” “When are you going to have children?” and “Did you mean to wear that today?”

Finding the right comeback can be a tricky thing. Assuming you’re unable to ignore the person or just walk away, how you handle inappropriate remarks says as much about your own character as the person ticking you off. And the comeback choices are limited if the insulting person is your boss -- assuming you want to keep your job.

So let’s say you don’t want to handle rudeness with rudeness. For me, that means passing on the two-word expletive that's top of mind when I’m confronted with the rude and offensive. It also means refraining from tossing out overtly snarky lines, such as, “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” or, “I'll try being nicer if you'll try being more intelligent,” or, “I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce,” or “I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public,” or “I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.”

Does the headline “How to Explain Bitcoin to Your Dad,” seem ridiculous to you? I hope so, because the headline “How to Explain Bitcoin to Your Mom,” somehow passed muster with the New York Times recently.

If that’s not crazy enough, the explaining to Mom was done via cartoon panels, rather than a traditional story. Obviously, there are lots of graphic novelists doing sophisticated work. But it’s hard not to see the message, in this case, as, “We have to make Bitcoin super-simple – like a cartoon! -- to make it accessible to our most unsophisticated readers. Like, you know, moms.”

Granted, Bitcoin, an electronic proto-currency, can take some explaining. But the supposition that those who haven’t had children are automatically more qualified to pontificate upon it than those who have is ageist to the core. Youth trumps a lot of things, but when you’re trying to explain a somewhat complicated technical matter, youth is of no import whatsoever. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there, a generation younger than I, who can explain Bitcoin perfectly well, to their parents or to anyone else. But their age has nothing to do with it.

I do not have it all. Texas congressional Representative Wendy Davis, despite the recent New York Times Magazine headline, “Can Wendy Davis Have it All?” is not about to have it all any time soon. Anne-Marie Slaughter said, in The Atlantic, that no woman, really, can have it all.

Even Sheryl Sandberg, self-appointed role model for moms who also have big jobs outside the home, does not have it all.

How do I know? Because no one ever has it all. The phrase “having it all,” which I gather used to represent some form of women’s empowerment, has been reduced to snarkery. To admit to having it all -- or wanting it all -- seems weirdly greedy. “Having it all” has come to invite judgment.

When The New York Times asked if Wendy Davis could have it all, they weren’t asking if she could have kids and a rocking career. She clearly does. They were asking if she could effectively campaign on her background as a single mom who once lived in a trailer park, even though her former partner handled the day-to-day childcare and paid Davis’ way through Harvard Law School.

The Times was asking, in essence, if Davis could have two seemingly mutually exclusive things, with the insinuation that it was okay for her to be a trailer park mom or a Harvard-trained lawyer, but not both. (As well-written as The New York Times story is, if you don’t think it reeks of misogynist claptrap, I beg you to read it again).